Ask Ethan: How do you get enough mass to have a multiverse?

One of the biggest scientific puzzles, even given our knowledge of the Big Bang, is understanding how our Universe came into being with the properties we observe it. We can understand how our modern Universe evolved from a warmer, denser, and more uniform early state, and we can even understand how this state arose from an earlier period of cosmic inflation. But if we extrapolate far enough back, at some point we lose the ability to measure properties or imprints from earlier periods; beyond that, we only have equations and speculations to guide us. One of the predictions arising from these too early times for confirmation is that our Universe is just one of many, the sum total of everything constituting a multiverse. But where does all the mass / energy of a multiverse come from? That’s what Professor Laura Templeman wants to know, asking, “I don’t know how to explain the mass of the multiverse. If it is constantly dividing into new multiverses, where is the energy conservation? Is gravity negative energy? Is it because expansion creates more? I’m sure I’m missing something basic but… how can we have enough mass for so many multiverses? It’s an incredibly deep question, and the best answer we can give is full of surprises. Most of us, when we think of the multiverse, have this picture of a large number – perhaps even infinite – of Universes that came into being some time ago, our Universe as we know it. ‘being that one of them. Furthermore, we can only observe a fraction of our Universe: the observable Universe, which from our perspective extends ~ 46 billion light years in all directions. Although we don’t see anything special about the limit of what we can see, since it is determined by the speed of light and the time that has passed since the Big Bang in our expanding universe, we cannot know for sure how much our Universe exceeds the limits of what we can observe. It could go on for an immeasurable great distance; it could even extend to infinity in all directions; but it could also end just beyond the limits of our cosmic horizon. No matter how long we wait, there will always be a limit to the amount of space visible to our eyes. Fortunately, however, studying what we can see gives us an idea of ​​what might lie beyond the limits of our possible perception. Even though the Universe is expanding and the signals it contains are fundamentally limited by the speed of light, there are some interesting “signposts” for what is at a particular distance. We exist now: 13.8 billion years after the first Big Bang. We live in a universe that is growing at a measurable speed of around 70 km / s / Mpc, which means that for every megaparsec (around 3.26 million light years) of distance between us and another object, he will seem to be moving away from us. at about 70 km / s, on average.

Highlights

According to Forbes “Ask Ethan: How do you get enough mass to have a multiverse?”

“I don’t know how to explain the mass of the multiverse. If it is constantly dividing into new multiverses, where is the energy conservation? Is gravity negative energy? Is it because expansion creates more? I’m sure I’m missing something basic but… how can we have enough mass for so many multiverses?

Read the full story

Check all news and articles from the Innovation news and blog.